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What Are Your Biggest Tax Worries?

Written by: Ross Kenneth Urken04/01/13 - 1:56 PM EDT

NEW YORK ( TheStreet)--How the mind worries at tax time with mounting pressure as deadlines wind down and paperwork piles up. But this year with the arcane and the sequestration, people are moving beyond their traditional phobias.

According to a GfK survey conducted on behalf of MainStreet, 3 in 10 Americans (31%) fear there will be a tax refund delay because of the sequestration, while another 1 in 5 (20%) expressed concerned there might be a problem in obtaining tax forms because of the sequestration. About 1 in 5 (18%) also say they have the perennial fears of an IRS audit, and more than one-third (36%) of respondents say they are concerned about the possibility of owing more taxes this year than they had thought.

"I wonder if it's just confusion," said William Congdon, an economist at The Brookings Institution specializing in the application of insights from behavioral economics.

That can add fuel to the tax season fire.

"As with anything people don't understand and can't control anxiety runs high," said Kit Yarrow, a consumer research psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University. "And anxiety by nature often interferes with logic."

The confusion over the legislative shifts and tax bracket minutiae can inhibit people's ability to analyze the changes--and their economic implications--in a clear-headed manner.

"I don't think many really understand how their lives will be impacted," Yarrow said. "They search for clarity and the logic portion of anxiety gives rumors a leg up. Already trust in the government is abysmal, and I think it's been compounded by the politicizing and lack of clarity about the ramifications of the sequester."

Tax forms have always been confusing, burdensome. The IRS has, since its inception, long been a specter for people come April. But the confusion and lack of trust are especially high given how in the dark people seem to be.

Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke, agrees that there is not this intangible general fear but a compromised faith in the government's ability to manage changes. "I don't think the question here is fear," he said. "Fear is, 'you see a tiger, and you become afraid.' I think here is a reduction in trust. And trust is about the fact that the other party is not acting according to the rules and acting in a random and unreliable way."